Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film (2010)

 

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1666305/

Don’t let the title and the category of this film fool you, this is not an experimental film. It is in fact a very traditional documentary about experimental film. I was actually rather surprised at how traditionally filmmaker Pip Chodorov chose to make this documentary and it works extremely well. He allows the film and their filmmakers to speak for themselves. The documentary can serve as an introduction to experimental film for those who know little or nothing about it but it is also thoroughly enjoyable for those who already have knowledge of the genre. Featuring archival footage of celebrated filmmakers such as Hans Richter talking about their work, the film is full of treats.
Our narrator is Pip Chodorov, a New York filmmaker who in 1994 founded Re:Voir video as a means to promote experimental films on home video. His father Stephan Chodorov is also a filmmaker and writer of documentaries and also stars in Pip’s film. Between the two of them they are pretty well connected and large parts of the film are interviews with great experimental filmmakers such as the late great Robert Breer and Jonas Mekas. Pip’s is an honest narration. He begins the film with some examples of his own home movies and experimental film to give himself context as the narrator and then he quickly moves on to forming a brief history, beginning with Richter’s mesmerising Rhythmus 21 (1923).
The documentary enjoyably spends time mapping the origins of experimental film by focussing on abstract avant-gardism of the 1920s with mentions to Viking Eggeling and a strong focus on Richter with another clip of one of his films Ghosts Before Breakfast (1927), which was banned by the Nazis for being too political and playful, if objects could get out of control so could humans. It is wonderful to see these short abstract films on the big screen and it is even more wonderful to see and hear the filmmakers talking about them.
Pip then moves on to the immigrant communities living in New York in the 50s and 60s and the significance of a Lithuanian film critic at The Village Voice called Jonas Mekas. Mekas went on to co-establish the Film-Makers’ Cooperative in 1962. The film spends time looking at other filmmakers from this period such as Breer, Michael Snow and Ken Jacobs and their films and discusses the mixed reactions to experimental films. At the same time the Letterists were pushing the boundaries of film with found scraps of film and scratching directly onto the actual film stock. This period of do it yourself filmmaking is truly inspiring and fascinating to hear about, especially from the people who were creating and challenging boundaries at that time.
The film looks at the work of Stan Vanderbeek, who coined the term ‘underground film’ in 1973, Len Lye, who worked at the Post Office for the GPO film unit and created brilliant adverts, and Stan Brakhage whose gorgeous painted films are timeless. There is brief footage of Andy Warhol but disappointingly none of his films are shown. Chodorov does do a great job of including many of the “poets of cinema” and in 80 minutes he manages to cover a lot. This is just an overview and perhaps doesn’t go into as much detail as some would like but I found it informative and engaging and just the right length.
Chodorov himself states that we have “only scratched the surface” and this is true but the film is satisfying and thoroughly enjoyable. Hopefully this documentary will open people’s eyes to experimental film and perhaps help people to appreciate it a little more. The periods that Chodorov covers are significant for film and art for many reasons and while this documentary doesn’t try to explain the meanings and reasons for this, it does enable us to understand and have an insight into the passion and creativity of these visionaries.
I highly recommend this documentary to anybody with an interest in film, particularly those of the belief that film is an art-form. Pip Chodorov has created an engaging and informative film that will hopefully encourage more people to seek out experimental film.